Kiva.org: Loans that Change Lives

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.

Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, our partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entrepreneur on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently.

Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle, and what effect it has on the people and institutions lending it, borrowing it, and managing it along the way. To do this, we are using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and are waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money.

Time since launch (January 2006): 30 months

Loans: $37 million, growing $1 million every 10 days

Lenders: 270 thousand people from +70 countries

Borrowers: 40 thousand entrepreneurs from +40 countries

MFI Partners: 100 MFIs, growing at 3 a month

Traffic: +100 thousand visitors / week

Activity: Loan made every 37 seconds

Risk: 97% active loans on time / 1.72% default rate (all partners)

Org Size:  30 employees / +400 volunteers

Leverage: Platform raises $8 for every $1 in expenses.

Goal: $1 Billion from 10 million lenders in 5 years.

Total value of all loans made through Kiva:  $37,281,060

Number of Kiva Lenders: 320,425

Number of loans that have been funded through Kiva: 52,847

Percentage of Kiva loans that have been made to women entrepreneurs: 77.20%

Number of Kiva Field Partners (microfinance institutions Kiva partners with): 89 (growing 3 a month)

Number of countries Kiva Field Partners are located in: 42

Current repayment rate (all partners): 98.28%

Average size of loan for funding: $480.44

Average total amount loaned per Kiva Lender (includes reloaned funds): $116.74

Average number of loans per Kiva Lender: 3.03